Hope Conditional

[rdhopeca]

Hey there,

So in the time since I last posted here back in 2017, I've rediscovered my love of writing music. Going to list my latest creations here, and if you enjoy them, great. If not, hey that's great too. I'll say that the ability of digital recording software has come a long, long way. If people are interested, I may post about how I created these, as in what software I used and so on. For the record, I can't play the guitar as I do on these albums; all of that playing is enhanced by my ability to digitally slow the tempo of the piece down enough so that I can play the parts clean.

My goal with all of these is to create what I hear in my head. Never do intend to play them live

Rob

[rdhopeca]

First up, my first foray into recording. It's called Romance Under Review and it was intended to be somewhat of a concept instrumental piece, following someone through the cycles of a romance. It's available on Spotify at:

https://open.spotify.com/album/4cFWW6U6XeZKez9Fd64Adq

It's mixing and recording is somewhat inconsistent, but it was a decent first step into trying to record something meaningful.

[rdhopeca]

Second up, is one I wrote with a purpose. It's an 18 song concept instrumental called The Zombie Chronicles. I wrote it as sort of a message to my children; my son was writing short stories, one of which was about Zombies, and I offered to write the soundtrack to the movie if they ever made his stories into a movie. I did it to show him that someone could conceive a project, execute it, and then release it. I'm very proud of the musical themes throughout the piece, the use of specific instruments for specific voices, and my ability to introduce musical complexity without being distracting. This is also available on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0X8Vnz0ocJeRTSjP6PX6Gg

My particular favorites are The Fall Of Isabel and Elijah's Victory; there's a part in Outbreak that is in 5/4 time with a 4/4 drum beat running underneath it that I am a bit proud of as well for its use of polymeter. The mixing and execution of this are next level up from my previous work; there are many fewer places where I cringe at the mix.

[rdhopeca]

Third up, having decided I am going to write 18 song concept instrumental albums from now on, is The Phoenix Diaries. This tells the story of the life cycle of a Phoenix. It took me a while to find the story I was trying to tell here; thematically it is not as strong as its predecessor, nor as consistently musically complex. But I think overall the songs are more consistently better here. This is available on Spotify as well:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1y4w18r7UobMoc3M794QE2

My favorites here are How Shall I Save Your Soul and Incineration, which is in 13/8 over 4/4 for most of the song. The execution isn't quite as good as its predecessor though; I found this more of a struggle to execute because the story and the motivation wasn't as strong. This was harder to record. But I still enjoy it.

[StevieG]

Excellent Rob! I look forward to listening to these over the next week or so. The 5/4 over 4/4 sounds intriguing!